PROGRAMME: SATURDAY 19 JUNE Joseph Middleton Director Jane Anthony Founder leedslieder1 @LeedsLieder @leedsliederfestival #LLF21 Welcome to The Leeds Lieder 2021 Festival Ten Festivals and a Pandemic! In 2004 a group of passionate, visionary song enthusiasts began programming recitals in Leeds and this venture has steadily grown to become the jam-packed season we now enjoy. With multiple artistic partners and thousands of individuals attending our events every year, Leeds Lieder is a true cultural success story. 2020 Elly Ameling was certainly a year of reacting nimbly and working in new paradigms. Joseph Middleton Joseph We turned Leeds Lieder into its own broadcaster and went digital. It has Director, Leeds Lieder Director, been extremely rewarding to connect with audiences all over the world Leeds Lieder President, throughout the past 12 months, and to support artists both internationally known and just starting out. The support of our Friends and the generosity shown by our audiences has meant that we have been able to continue our award-winning education programmes online, commission new works and provide valuable training for young artists. In 2021 we have invited more musicians than ever before to appear in our Festival and for the first time we look forward to being hosted by Leeds Town Hall. The art of the A message from Elly Ameling, song recital continues to be relevant and flourish in Yorkshire. Hon. President of Leeds Lieder As the finest Festival of art song in the North, we continue to provide a platform for international stars to rub shoulders with the next generation As long as I have been in joyful contact with Leeds Lieder, from 2005 until of emerging musicians. However, at the 2021 Festival, we want to place today, I have admired the careful and adventurous programming. But the audience centre stage – we have missed you, and we cannot wait to this year I am completely overwhelmed by the variety of styles and of the share music with you once again! Turn to the closing recital and you can performing artists! Impossible to mention one of the concerts as ‘the best’. read more about your starring role! We enjoyed socially distanced recitals But I cannot avoid being utterly curious about the closing recital. What a in Leeds Town Hall in the Autumn and feel confident that, Government wonderful idea to give a VOICE to the audience now that we are present in Guidelines permitting, we can present a Festival you will enjoy in person the Victoria Hall as well as online everywhere in the world! ENJOY! and feel safe attending. Please see the back inside page for our Covid Safe Elly Ameling Information. For those who have enjoyed our Livestreams, you can enjoy every event from the comfort of your home. Information about purchasing livestream tickets can also be found at the back of this brochure. Our Young Artists will perform across the weekend and work with Dame Felicity Lott, James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook, Sir Thomas Allen and Iain Burnside. Iain has also programmed a fascinating music theatre piece for the opening lunchtime recital. New talent is on evidence at every turn in this Festival. Ema Nikolovska and William Thomas return, and young instrumentalists join Mark Padmore for an evening presenting the complete Canticles by Britten. I’m also thrilled to welcome Alice Coote in her Leeds Lieder début. A recital not to miss. The peerless Graham Johnson appears with one of his Songmakers’ Almanac programmes and we welcome back Leeds Lieder favourites Roderick Williams, Carolyn Sampson and James Gilchrist. Our last season was our most ambitious to date, and we are unashamed in boasting about our growth in audience: a staggering 60% increase in the past four years. Let’s keep this upward trajectory! Our exciting Learning and Participation programme which opens up creative music-making to people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities allows many more individuals to take delight in our events. Around 1000 school children will learn songs through our education programmes this year alone. Ticket sales and public funding provide around half of Leeds Lieder’s income and the remainder comes from the most generous philanthropic support, without which the scope of our programming and artistic vision would be compromised. Our audiences prove to be our greatest supporters and we remain immensely grateful to all our Friends. Every gift, no matter what size, really does make a difference. Visit our supporters page on the website if you’d like more information about how you can help shape culture in Leeds. I hope you like what is on over the next few pages and I look forward to welcoming you to this Festival. I feel confident it will be a very special few days. With all best wishes, Joseph Middleton – Director 2 0113 376 0318 : leedslieder.org.uk Programme of Events All events take place at Leeds Town Hall. Thursday 17 June 1pm The View from the Villa Victoria Hall 3pm Festival Masterclass I: with Iain Burnside Victoria Hall Risers 7pm Pre-Concert Talk: with Richard Stokes Crypt 8pm Evening Recital: A Spiritual Solstice Victoria Hall Friday 18 June 10am Festival Masterclass II: with Dame Felicity Lott Victoria Hall Risers 2.30pm Lunchtime Concert: Natalya Romaniw and Iain Burnside Victoria Hall 7pm Pre-Concert Talk: with Dr Lucy Walker Crypt 8pm Evening Recital: Britten: The Five Canticles Victoria Hall 9.45pm Late Night Lieder: The Hermes Experiment Victoria Hall Risers Saturday 19 June 10.30am Coffee Concert: Leeds Lieder Young Artists Victoria Hall Risers p4 1pm Lunchtime Recital: Ema Nikolovska and Joseph Middleton Victoria Hall p4 3pm Festival Masterclass III: with Sir Thomas Allen Victoria Hall Risers p12 7pm Pre-Concert Talk: with Professor Natasha Loges Crypt p12 8pm Evening Recital: If Fiordiligi and Dorabella had been Victoria Hall p13 Lieder singers 8pm Pop-up Poetry Zoom event p27 Sunday 20 June 10.30am Study Event: Schubert and Beethoven, the birth of the Victoria Hall Risers Lied Cycle and a new voice in Romanticism 1pm Lunchtime Recital: O Solitude Victoria Hall 3pm Festival Masterclass IV and presentation of the Victoria Hall Risers Leeds Lieder/Schubert Institute UK Song Prize: with James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook 7pm Pre-Concert Talk: with Hannah Kendall Crypt 8pm Closing Recital: He Sings/She Sings/They Sing/You Choose Victoria Hall Translations of songs are included in this programme. All recitals will run without interval. Lunchtime concerts last 1 hour. Evening recitals last between 60 and 70 minutes. Masterclasses will include a short convenience break. Toilets are available at Leeds Town Hall. Please remember to switch off mobile phones. 0113 376 0318 : leedslieder.org.uk 3 © Kaupo Kikkas © Sussie Ahlburg Ema Nikolovska Ema Joseph Middleton Joseph Saturday 19 June 10.30am Victoria Hall Risers Coffee Concert Leeds Lieder Young Artists The finest young duos coached over the weekend by Dame Felicity Lott, James Gilchrist, Anna Tilbrook, Sir Thomas Allen and Iain Burnside, showcase the songs they have been exploring. An opportunity to enjoy the next generation of Lieder singers and pianists. Saturday 19 June 1pm Victoria Hall Lunchtime Recital Ema Nikolovska mezzo-soprano Joseph Middleton piano Kate Soper (b.1981) Judith Weir (b. 1954) So Dawn Chromatically Descends in Day Songs from the Exotic Sevdalino, my little one Rosephanye Powell (b.1962) (Serbian folksong) A Winter Twilight In the lovely village of Nevesinje Howard Swanson (1907-78) (from a Serbian epic) Night Song The Romance of Count Arnaldos (Annonymos 15-16th century Spanish song) Hale Smith (1925-2009) The Song of a girl ravished away by the fairies in South Uist March Moon (Scottish-Gaelic folksong) Errolynn Wallen (b.1948) Danika Lorèn (b.1989) About Here The Idlers Franz Schubert (1797-1828) The Sex Lives of Vegetables An den Mond Cabbages Wallen Onions London’s Burning Lettuce Carrots Schubert Cauliflower Die Götter Griechenlands Ema Nikolovska is supported by The Kathleen Ferrier Awards Tomislav Zografski (1934-2000) Marika Moma Ubava Clara Schumann (1819-96) Volkslied Zografski Taga 4 0113 376 0318 : leedslieder.org.uk So Dawn Chromatically Descends to Day Texts Here is a central source of musical emotion. We internalize the Kate motion of pitches and chords in reaction to contextual forces in musical space. We attribute agency and causation to musical motions that violate intuitive physics and inevitability to motions that yield to musical inertia. The character Soper of the musical motions, which is shaped also by their temporal realization, mirrors equivalent motions in the ‘real’ physical world. We map specific musical motions onto specific emotional qualities, again in reflection of real-world (b. 1943) equivalences. [M]usic and language share the same evolutionary roots. (They) diverged in their most characteristic features: pitch organization in music, and word and sentence meaning in language. Poetry straddles this evolutionary divergence by projecting, through the addition to ordinary speech of metrical and timbral patterning, its common heritage with music. Incidentally, text setting is a rich source of evidence for the interface between music and poetry. – Fred Lerdahl (b 1943), from ‘Two Ways in Which Music Relates to the World’ (adapted Soper). Nothing Gold Can Stay Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. – Robert Frost (1874-1963) Rosephanye A Winter Twilight A silence slipping around like death, One path that knows where the Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh, corn flowers were; Powell a breath; One group of trees, lean, Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir; (b. 1962) naked and cold, And over it softly leaning down, Inking their cress One star that I loved ere the ‘gainst a sky green-gold; fields went brown Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958) Night Song Howard In the dark, before the tall moon came, Little short dusk was walking along.